TFA points out that people congregate with laptops at hotspots. This is true. Thiefs know they can find one or many at such a place.
Makes sense...that's one premise behind the convoy antisubmarine tactic in WWII. By concentrating the supply ships in a smaller area, you knew (roughly) where the submarines had to be in order to attack.
By concentrating the wireless laptops in a smaller area, thieves know where to go to steal them. Same idea, but working in favor of the thieves.
They of course have been suggesting sneakernet to move files and data around, but my solution is to network them all with a dedicated backbone behind a Mac mini that is now shipping with Gigabit Ethernet on board.
Out of curiousity, how do you do that with one Ethernet port? Does the Mac Mini act as a firewall/router? I always thought you had to have at least two Ethernet ports. Then again, the most complex network I've ever set up is a Linksys router sharing files and a printer between my Windows and OS X PCs.
Straying from what was actually said about tiered access for end users, I'm going to look at "tiered prioritization" which seems to be the actual topic being discussesd.
Here is the scenario I picture; I'm not a network guru by any stretch of the imagination, so feel free to correct as necessary.
Company A uses ISP A for connectivity. User B uses ISP B for connectivity. Now, ISP A and ISP B are not connected to each other directly, but via other networks C, D, etc. either in series or parallel or some combination. The point is that there is no direct connection between the two ISPs.
Network C says "Hey, Company A sure has a lot of traffic going through our network, and they aren't paying us a single thin dime. By golly, if they don't pay us, we're going to put a lower priority on their traffic!"
This is what appears to be the scenario that is being discussed at great length.
If network C did in fact throttle down the traffic from Company A, wouldn't the traffic automatically re-route around company C, treating the throttling as congestion?
A point that also seems to be lost is that "what goes around comes around." Sure, a network might carry a lot of pass-through traffic, but traffic that originates on that same network is likely pass-through traffic somewhere else. It would seem that, ideally, some sort of reciprocity would exist: you don't try to hammer our customer's pass-through traffic and we won't hammer yours.
I agree that CDs aren't going away anytime soon--I would think that the average listener is more likely to have a CD player in the car than an iPod with an iTrip transmitter or some other form of digital player/radio interface. Hell, my car has a cassette deck in it from the factory, and yes, I use it on occasion.
Don't forget, not everybody has a computer/Internet access at home, many by choice, and they still have ears. My parents don't own a computer so CDs are still the media of choice.
At the same time, I do think that the CD will gradually fade away into a niche market, where collectors appreciate good cover art, CD inserts, the box sets with their own books, etc. Listeners want the sound and probably don't place much regard to the extra material; collectors go for the art, the documents, and such that go with the discs themselves.
It's like watching LOTR you downloaded or recorded off your high-definition cable to DVD or PVR versus the collector's edition DVD. They may both look the same on the screen, but that collector's edition DVD has a box and inserts that fit right in on the bookshelf with the leather-bound edition of the book.
Try this one...I'm not experienced enough with OS X (or *nix of any sort) to really make good sense of it, but what I was able to understand and apply made sense.
Now that the MacBooks are shipping, do you think this will ignite a Universal Binary explosion? Within days of the Intel iMac [maybe that's what the 'i' has always foreshadowed?;) ] being released, I saw Universal binaries for a pair of IM clients: Adium and Fire. MacFamilyTree was also quickly released as a Universal Binary.
Maybe I just happen to hit the right apps, or maybe they're small enough software shops that they can move this fast, but I have this impression that building Universal binaries is starting to move at a good clip. Here is a site that has a list of them, last updated Feb. 13:
Call me naive, but why is a critical system such as this even accessible from outside the hospital in the first place?
I'm not talking firewalls, filtering, passwords, etc. I mean why is there a physical path from outside in? Except for electric power, why is this network not isolated from off-site? I would think that physical isolation would be the most effective "firewall" from Internet-based intrusion.
I ask simply because I don't understand why there is even the possibility of such a connection.
I had the same problem once, it turned out that I added something to the AdBlock Plus filter that stopped the Gmail script or something, I never figured it out...kill off the most recent filters added to the list and try again.
...it's called a scissors. I'll cut the wires to his headphones, then there is no way he can turn his iPod up loud enough to hurt his hearing!
Better yet, since he may "work around the fix" by replacing the headphones, a dab of epoxy in the headphone jack. Yeah, that will REALLY keep him from hurting himself!
Seriously though, his attorney even admits that they don't know if the iPod caused any damage:
Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that's beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.
EVERYTHING has the potential to cause bodily harm! Do you want to be put in a bubble to protect you from all the "bad things" in the world? His television also has the potential to cause hearing loss, as does his car (defective muffler,) smoke detector (I wonder if he would sue First Alert for hearing loss in the event of a fire,) even the Q-Tips in the bathroom (which everybody knows aren't supposed to be used in the ear canal, but c'mon, who doesn't do that?)
Long live the nanny state! (Yes I meant that sarcastically yet it's unfortunate that some really want it to go that way.)
That said, I can't believe that the papers want to take on Google when they're doing nothing more than pushing eyeballs to the papers' sites. Of course, in a golden goose scenario, the papers probably think they'll make more by making Google license those snippets of the story instead of capitalizing on the users who are visiting their site that wouldn't have, had it not been for the most ubiquitous search engine.
I have to agree with you there. I'd never think to to go to the Toronto, Chicago, San Francosico papers to read a story if it weren't for Google News. Yes, the papers are benefiting from having traffic steered towards their sites, and to want Google to pay for helping them is cooking the Golden Goose for dinner.
It has been said elsewhere before and I'll agree here too: if the sites don't want to be indexed/referred to by Google, then if I were Google, I'd say "Fine, we'll stop directing revenue-generating traffic towards your website at no cost to you."
I suppose if they made money off ads on Google News, then the papers would have a case, since Google was in fact profiting off of other organizations' material without compensating the originators. I don't think Google is hurting for cash so I don't see the ad-free Google News page changing anytime soon and hope it stays that way.
Now we will just have to sit and wait for Steve Gibson's assessment that Apple intentionally left these exploits open as a backdoor to the system!
I wouldn't hold your breath on that one, he doesn't deal with Macs at all. I know, I asked.
Well, it was one of his employees, anyway. I was wondering how the built-in OS X firewall compared to other available products and asked why GRC didn't do any OS X stuff. Here's the reply:
Also, since Gibson Research only produces software for the IBM-compatible personal computing platform, we are sometimes asked why we don't write software for the Mac. The answer is:
(1) We don't know anything about the Mac. We're a small PC software development shop and we've become leading experts with the PC. But the PC and the Mac are SO DIFFERENT that knowing one tells us nothing about the other.
(2) Being small, we must be careful to expend our resources where they will yield the greatest return. With more then 90% of the personal computer market dominated by IBM-compatible machines running MS-DOS underneath the Microsoft Windows graphical operating environment, that's where we much focus our efforts.
(3) Steve is an insane perfectionist who insists upon authoring all of our software in assembly language. Assembly language is tied directly to the processor chip in the computer, thus none of our software CAN be moved from the PC to the Mac. It's completely tied to the Intel processor platform. But because of reasons (1) and (2) above, we're doing just fine, and Steve's slavish devotion to the highest performance, tight and lean code helps make our products even more unique and attractive to PC users.
This may not be related very well to your remark (yes, I recognized the jab at GRC) and overall OT but I thought the Slashdot crowd might find it somewhat interesting.
Actually, after having read the article, you do get the savings without a hit in performance.
Here's how I understood what was written:
When the processor is running at a particular clock rate, it is supplied a certain voltage. Reduce this voltage, and the processor clock likewise slows down. This feature is not changed.
What IS changed are the voltage thresholds when this speed shift happens. For example, when the processor was running at the reduced clock speed, the voltage (VID) was 1.000 V. However, the author was able to reduced this voltage down to 0.925 V. Hence, when the processor was set to run at the lower clock rate, the VID was only 0.925 V instead of 1.000 V. He then adjusted the settings so that the clock runs at it's original reduced speed with the new lower voltage.
For the faster clock rate, the VID was 1.450 V. However, he was able to get the processor to run at full speed at 1.175V. Again, the clock speed is the same, but the VID itself is lower. Thus, for each speed state of the processor, he was able to run it at a lower voltage.
The best analogy I can think of is the final drive ratio on a car; you have two gears, low and high, and an engine that normally runs at two speeds, say 1000 and 2000 RPM. You only drive at two speeds, 25MPH (1000 RPM) and 50 MPH (2000 RPM.) You tweak the gear ratio in the transmission and engine speed such that, in the end, the car still drives down the road at 25 or 50 MPH but now the engine turns over at only 850 and 1900 RPM. Low and high road speeds are unchanged, but the engine speeds are lower.
Why don't laptop manufacturers do this? They would have to tune these voltages for each individual processor. I'm no expert in overclocking, but if I understand it right, same-model processors can be overclocked at different rates: If you and I have the exact same model processor, you may be able to overclock it more than I can overclock mine, due to manufacturing tolerances. The same principle seems to apply to undervolting; it has to be done in a controlled fashion on a machine-by-machine basis, over a period of several hours.
I tried it first as one message to two recipients, and it didn't work either.
Try sending it from an email account other that your gmail account, and don't send to both addresses from the same message (i.e. two recipients.) I send one message from my university account to first.last@gmail.com then a second separate message to firstlast@gmail.com and both arrived.
With a wireless usb adapter it essentially means I can transfer those recordings to my laptop/desktop pc with the minimum of hassle.
Will it?
I couldn't find any product info at the Belkin site, only the linked press release. It appear that the only wireless portion is between the hub and the computer. The press release itself eludes to this, as it says "Laptop users gain the freedom to roam wirelessly with their laptop around the room while still maintaining access to their stationary USB devices." (Emphasis mine) Presumably the devices as well as the hub, as they are stationary, still use cables to get to the hub.
You are correct in that it would do as you describe, provided that you put the hub in the cabinet as well.
I agree...while the two linked articles touch on the almost-merger and use of PPC over SPARC, one focuses on the merger/acquistion story and one focuses on the PPC vs. SPARC decision.
The whole Windows-on-Mac brings to mind a topic that has been discussed before regarding Windows and x86 hardware.
We're all aware of the so-called "Microsoft Tax" on x86 hardware. To turn the table around for a minute, let's put it in the light of OS X on Apple hardware.
Let's say that WinXP will in fact boot on a Intel iMac, and not just boot--but boot well, full hardware support, and be actually useful with no limitations. Let's also say for some reason a user wants to buy an iMac (or MacBook, doesn't matter which for this discussion) for the hardware (or any other reason) but wants to use Windows on it and not OS X at all.
(Yes, a very hypothetical situation, but let's pretend.)
Said user calls up Apple and wants to buy an Intel-based iMac but doesn't want OS X. Obviously, the two won't be separated, since Apple markets the Mac "experience" as opposed to just hardware and software (plus the whole engineering hardware for a known OS and vice versa.) Would Apple's refusal to unbundle OS X constitute an "Apple Tax" on the hardware?
I would contend it does not, as Apple manufactures both the OS and hardware and bundles them on its own accord; they are not forced to do so by an outside company. Microsoft, OTOH, "influences" other hardware manufacturers into including Windows, whether or not they really want to bundle Windows withe their hardware. Maybe more appropriately, Microsoft influences them to NOT bundle other software (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.)
At the same time, since OS X is not the only OS that will run on the hardware, there are alternative options to OS X on Apple hardware. Furthermore, Apple is perfectly happy to sell you OS X without hardware, why not sell the hardware without OS X?
Maybe it's an obvious non-issue but I thought it would make for interesting conversation.
(As a side note, the discussion seems to have focused on Windows running on Apple hardware, but I haven't seen much on OS X Intel running on run-of-the-mill x86 hardware. Is there something in OS X Intel that specifically looks for Apple hardware? I thought I saw something about that but I can't recall exactly. Wow, that would really put Apple's panties in a bunch wouldn't it? OS X on a Dell?)
"It does not matter how the song is performed. Be it a live band, radio, CD or tape, the music user must have the permission of the song's owner to perform it in their place of business."
That one..."radio"...blows my mind.
I would think that the act of broadcasting the song from a 50 kilowatt transmitter is already a public performance, and requiring a any sort of additional license is double-dipping. "We want you to pay us for the right to transmit the music, and we want you to pay us for the right to receive it."
Does this seem like charging a toll at both ends of a tollbridge?
Apparently the auctioner got some sort of talking-to, as the auction site no longer looks like a ripoff of Apple's website...no graphics, plain text, and much shorter with lots of big-print "third party" and "not affiliated with Apple" disclaimers.
The version is dated 20051201, as in December 1, 2005...as in six weeks ago. I've been running this version for at least a month now. Did the status change from RCx to final release? What did I miss?
Will usually ship within 1 business day of receiving cleared payment.
Not built until sold, then out the door in a day of receiving payment? Talk about turnaround time for a prototype-less product!
I agree, stay away...stay far, far away!
(also wonder when Apple will come after them...the ad looks WAY too much like Apple's marketing work.)
Concerned? Stick it behind your firewall
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 1
At the risk of oversimplifying a solution, how about this:
If you're concerned that iTMS may be phoning home, don't let it through your firewall.
On my Windows laptop, ZoneAlarm Pro always pops up that Windows Media Player is trying to connect to the Internet. I click the "deny" button and continue on my merry way.
I haven't thought about iTMS on my OS X machines, but I may look into it some.
Is this a "too simple" solution?
You may think that firewalling it off doesn't solve the problem, it merely puts a band-aid over the problem, but consider this: how much did you pay for the iTunes software? Nothing? It was a freebie? No, there's a cost to it. You get to use iTunes even if you don't use iTMS, and you "pay" for it with your music preference info.
Am I missing something more complex or something more simple?
Slashdot Mirror
Makes sense...that's one premise behind the convoy antisubmarine tactic in WWII. By concentrating the supply ships in a smaller area, you knew (roughly) where the submarines had to be in order to attack.
By concentrating the wireless laptops in a smaller area, thieves know where to go to steal them. Same idea, but working in favor of the thieves.
I wonder what he uses...*cough*GDS*cough*
They of course have been suggesting sneakernet to move files and data around, but my solution is to network them all with a dedicated backbone behind a Mac mini that is now shipping with Gigabit Ethernet on board.
Out of curiousity, how do you do that with one Ethernet port? Does the Mac Mini act as a firewall/router? I always thought you had to have at least two Ethernet ports. Then again, the most complex network I've ever set up is a Linksys router sharing files and a printer between my Windows and OS X PCs.
Straying from what was actually said about tiered access for end users, I'm going to look at "tiered prioritization" which seems to be the actual topic being discussesd.
Here is the scenario I picture; I'm not a network guru by any stretch of the imagination, so feel free to correct as necessary.
Company A uses ISP A for connectivity. User B uses ISP B for connectivity. Now, ISP A and ISP B are not connected to each other directly, but via other networks C, D, etc. either in series or parallel or some combination. The point is that there is no direct connection between the two ISPs.
Network C says "Hey, Company A sure has a lot of traffic going through our network, and they aren't paying us a single thin dime. By golly, if they don't pay us, we're going to put a lower priority on their traffic!"
This is what appears to be the scenario that is being discussed at great length.
If network C did in fact throttle down the traffic from Company A, wouldn't the traffic automatically re-route around company C, treating the throttling as congestion?
A point that also seems to be lost is that "what goes around comes around." Sure, a network might carry a lot of pass-through traffic, but traffic that originates on that same network is likely pass-through traffic somewhere else. It would seem that, ideally, some sort of reciprocity would exist: you don't try to hammer our customer's pass-through traffic and we won't hammer yours.
I agree that CDs aren't going away anytime soon--I would think that the average listener is more likely to have a CD player in the car than an iPod with an iTrip transmitter or some other form of digital player/radio interface. Hell, my car has a cassette deck in it from the factory, and yes, I use it on occasion.
Don't forget, not everybody has a computer/Internet access at home, many by choice, and they still have ears. My parents don't own a computer so CDs are still the media of choice.
At the same time, I do think that the CD will gradually fade away into a niche market, where collectors appreciate good cover art, CD inserts, the box sets with their own books, etc. Listeners want the sound and probably don't place much regard to the extra material; collectors go for the art, the documents, and such that go with the discs themselves.
It's like watching LOTR you downloaded or recorded off your high-definition cable to DVD or PVR versus the collector's edition DVD. They may both look the same on the screen, but that collector's edition DVD has a box and inserts that fit right in on the bookshelf with the leather-bound edition of the book.
Try this one...I'm not experienced enough with OS X (or *nix of any sort) to really make good sense of it, but what I was able to understand and apply made sense.
i ng-mac-os-x-tiger.pdf
http://www.corsaire.com/white-papers/050819-secur
Now that the MacBooks are shipping, do you think this will ignite a Universal Binary explosion? Within days of the Intel iMac [maybe that's what the 'i' has always foreshadowed? ;) ] being released, I saw Universal binaries for a pair of IM clients: Adium and Fire. MacFamilyTree was also quickly released as a Universal Binary.
l
Maybe I just happen to hit the right apps, or maybe they're small enough software shops that they can move this fast, but I have this impression that building Universal binaries is starting to move at a good clip. Here is a site that has a list of them, last updated Feb. 13:
http://www.macintouch.com/imacintel/ubinaries.htm
Call me naive, but why is a critical system such as this even accessible from outside the hospital in the first place?
I'm not talking firewalls, filtering, passwords, etc. I mean why is there a physical path from outside in? Except for electric power, why is this network not isolated from off-site? I would think that physical isolation would be the most effective "firewall" from Internet-based intrusion.
I ask simply because I don't understand why there is even the possibility of such a connection.
Absolutely, he'd make a great PR man! He'd do "a heck of a job!"
I had the same problem once, it turned out that I added something to the AdBlock Plus filter that stopped the Gmail script or something, I never figured it out...kill off the most recent filters added to the list and try again.
...it's called a scissors. I'll cut the wires to his headphones, then there is no way he can turn his iPod up loud enough to hurt his hearing!
Better yet, since he may "work around the fix" by replacing the headphones, a dab of epoxy in the headphone jack. Yeah, that will REALLY keep him from hurting himself!
Seriously though, his attorney even admits that they don't know if the iPod caused any damage:
Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that's beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.
EVERYTHING has the potential to cause bodily harm! Do you want to be put in a bubble to protect you from all the "bad things" in the world? His television also has the potential to cause hearing loss, as does his car (defective muffler,) smoke detector (I wonder if he would sue First Alert for hearing loss in the event of a fire,) even the Q-Tips in the bathroom (which everybody knows aren't supposed to be used in the ear canal, but c'mon, who doesn't do that?)
Long live the nanny state! (Yes I meant that sarcastically yet it's unfortunate that some really want it to go that way.)
That said, I can't believe that the papers want to take on Google when they're doing nothing more than pushing eyeballs to the papers' sites. Of course, in a golden goose scenario, the papers probably think they'll make more by making Google license those snippets of the story instead of capitalizing on the users who are visiting their site that wouldn't have, had it not been for the most ubiquitous search engine.
I have to agree with you there. I'd never think to to go to the Toronto, Chicago, San Francosico papers to read a story if it weren't for Google News. Yes, the papers are benefiting from having traffic steered towards their sites, and to want Google to pay for helping them is cooking the Golden Goose for dinner.
It has been said elsewhere before and I'll agree here too: if the sites don't want to be indexed/referred to by Google, then if I were Google, I'd say "Fine, we'll stop directing revenue-generating traffic towards your website at no cost to you."
I suppose if they made money off ads on Google News, then the papers would have a case, since Google was in fact profiting off of other organizations' material without compensating the originators. I don't think Google is hurting for cash so I don't see the ad-free Google News page changing anytime soon and hope it stays that way.
I think you made that up. I hope you made that up.
Nope, that was a cut-and-paste from an email response I got from somebody in GRC tech support in response to my inquiry on Mac firewalls.
Now we will just have to sit and wait for Steve Gibson's assessment that Apple intentionally left these exploits open as a backdoor to the system!
I wouldn't hold your breath on that one, he doesn't deal with Macs at all. I know, I asked.
Well, it was one of his employees, anyway. I was wondering how the built-in OS X firewall compared to other available products and asked why GRC didn't do any OS X stuff. Here's the reply:
Also, since Gibson Research only produces software for the
IBM-compatible personal computing platform, we are sometimes asked
why we don't write software for the Mac. The answer is:
(1) We don't know anything about the Mac. We're a small PC software
development shop and we've become leading experts with the PC. But
the PC and the Mac are SO DIFFERENT that knowing one tells us nothing
about the other.
(2) Being small, we must be careful to expend our resources where
they will yield the greatest return. With more then 90% of the
personal computer market dominated by IBM-compatible machines running
MS-DOS underneath the Microsoft Windows graphical operating
environment, that's where we much focus our efforts.
(3) Steve is an insane perfectionist who insists upon authoring all
of our software in assembly language. Assembly language is tied
directly to the processor chip in the computer, thus none of our
software CAN be moved from the PC to the Mac. It's completely tied
to the Intel processor platform. But because of reasons (1) and (2)
above, we're doing just fine, and Steve's slavish devotion to the
highest performance, tight and lean code helps make our products even
more unique and attractive to PC users.
This may not be related very well to your remark (yes, I recognized the jab at GRC) and overall OT but I thought the Slashdot crowd might find it somewhat interesting.
Actually, after having read the article, you do get the savings without a hit in performance.
Here's how I understood what was written:
When the processor is running at a particular clock rate, it is supplied a certain voltage. Reduce this voltage, and the processor clock likewise slows down. This feature is not changed.
What IS changed are the voltage thresholds when this speed shift happens. For example, when the processor was running at the reduced clock speed, the voltage (VID) was 1.000 V. However, the author was able to reduced this voltage down to 0.925 V. Hence, when the processor was set to run at the lower clock rate, the VID was only 0.925 V instead of 1.000 V. He then adjusted the settings so that the clock runs at it's original reduced speed with the new lower voltage.
For the faster clock rate, the VID was 1.450 V. However, he was able to get the processor to run at full speed at 1.175V. Again, the clock speed is the same, but the VID itself is lower. Thus, for each speed state of the processor, he was able to run it at a lower voltage.
The best analogy I can think of is the final drive ratio on a car; you have two gears, low and high, and an engine that normally runs at two speeds, say 1000 and 2000 RPM. You only drive at two speeds, 25MPH (1000 RPM) and 50 MPH (2000 RPM.) You tweak the gear ratio in the transmission and engine speed such that, in the end, the car still drives down the road at 25 or 50 MPH but now the engine turns over at only 850 and 1900 RPM. Low and high road speeds are unchanged, but the engine speeds are lower.
Why don't laptop manufacturers do this? They would have to tune these voltages for each individual processor. I'm no expert in overclocking, but if I understand it right, same-model processors can be overclocked at different rates: If you and I have the exact same model processor, you may be able to overclock it more than I can overclock mine, due to manufacturing tolerances. The same principle seems to apply to undervolting; it has to be done in a controlled fashion on a machine-by-machine basis, over a period of several hours.
I tried it first as one message to two recipients, and it didn't work either.
Try sending it from an email account other that your gmail account, and don't send to both addresses from the same message (i.e. two recipients.) I send one message from my university account to first.last@gmail.com then a second separate message to firstlast@gmail.com and both arrived.
With a wireless usb adapter it essentially means I can transfer those recordings to my laptop/desktop pc with the minimum of hassle.
Will it?
I couldn't find any product info at the Belkin site, only the linked press release. It appear that the only wireless portion is between the hub and the computer. The press release itself eludes to this, as it says "Laptop users gain the freedom to roam wirelessly with their laptop around the room while still maintaining access to their stationary USB devices." (Emphasis mine) Presumably the devices as well as the hub, as they are stationary, still use cables to get to the hub.
You are correct in that it would do as you describe, provided that you put the hub in the cabinet as well.
Sort of like how 640K RAM was more than anybody would ever need or how 10 MB hard drives were ENORMOUS. :)
(Methink it's time to upgrade to the 20 MB drive)
I agree...while the two linked articles touch on the almost-merger and use of PPC over SPARC, one focuses on the merger/acquistion story and one focuses on the PPC vs. SPARC decision.
Half brother/half sister stories? Cousins?
The whole Windows-on-Mac brings to mind a topic that has been discussed before regarding Windows and x86 hardware.
We're all aware of the so-called "Microsoft Tax" on x86 hardware. To turn the table around for a minute, let's put it in the light of OS X on Apple hardware.
Let's say that WinXP will in fact boot on a Intel iMac, and not just boot--but boot well, full hardware support, and be actually useful with no limitations. Let's also say for some reason a user wants to buy an iMac (or MacBook, doesn't matter which for this discussion) for the hardware (or any other reason) but wants to use Windows on it and not OS X at all.
(Yes, a very hypothetical situation, but let's pretend.)
Said user calls up Apple and wants to buy an Intel-based iMac but doesn't want OS X. Obviously, the two won't be separated, since Apple markets the Mac "experience" as opposed to just hardware and software (plus the whole engineering hardware for a known OS and vice versa.) Would Apple's refusal to unbundle OS X constitute an "Apple Tax" on the hardware?
I would contend it does not, as Apple manufactures both the OS and hardware and bundles them on its own accord; they are not forced to do so by an outside company. Microsoft, OTOH, "influences" other hardware manufacturers into including Windows, whether or not they really want to bundle Windows withe their hardware. Maybe more appropriately, Microsoft influences them to NOT bundle other software (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.)
At the same time, since OS X is not the only OS that will run on the hardware, there are alternative options to OS X on Apple hardware. Furthermore, Apple is perfectly happy to sell you OS X without hardware, why not sell the hardware without OS X?
Maybe it's an obvious non-issue but I thought it would make for interesting conversation.
(As a side note, the discussion seems to have focused on Windows running on Apple hardware, but I haven't seen much on OS X Intel running on run-of-the-mill x86 hardware. Is there something in OS X Intel that specifically looks for Apple hardware? I thought I saw something about that but I can't recall exactly. Wow, that would really put Apple's panties in a bunch wouldn't it? OS X on a Dell?)
Random thoughts on a Monday evening...
According to the BMI web site:
"It does not matter how the song is performed. Be it a live band, radio, CD or tape, the music user must have the permission of the song's owner to perform it in their place of business."
That one..."radio"...blows my mind.
I would think that the act of broadcasting the song from a 50 kilowatt transmitter is already a public performance, and requiring a any sort of additional license is double-dipping. "We want you to pay us for the right to transmit the music, and we want you to pay us for the right to receive it."
Does this seem like charging a toll at both ends of a tollbridge?
Apparently the auctioner got some sort of talking-to, as the auction site no longer looks like a ripoff of Apple's website...no graphics, plain text, and much shorter with lots of big-print "third party" and "not affiliated with Apple" disclaimers.
And some poor soul has placed a bid.
The version is dated 20051201, as in December 1, 2005...as in six weeks ago. I've been running this version for at least a month now. Did the status change from RCx to final release? What did I miss?
Even better is the shipping policy...
Will usually ship within 1 business day of receiving cleared payment.
Not built until sold, then out the door in a day of receiving payment? Talk about turnaround time for a prototype-less product!
I agree, stay away...stay far, far away!
(also wonder when Apple will come after them...the ad looks WAY too much like Apple's marketing work.)
At the risk of oversimplifying a solution, how about this:
If you're concerned that iTMS may be phoning home, don't let it through your firewall.
On my Windows laptop, ZoneAlarm Pro always pops up that Windows Media Player is trying to connect to the Internet. I click the "deny" button and continue on my merry way.
I haven't thought about iTMS on my OS X machines, but I may look into it some.
Is this a "too simple" solution?
You may think that firewalling it off doesn't solve the problem, it merely puts a band-aid over the problem, but consider this: how much did you pay for the iTunes software? Nothing? It was a freebie? No, there's a cost to it. You get to use iTunes even if you don't use iTMS, and you "pay" for it with your music preference info.
Am I missing something more complex or something more simple?